From Sentient Beings to Bodhisattvas & Buddhas

All Buddhas hope all beings
can eventually spiritually evolve
to all be Buddhas like themselves.

– Stonepeace

You could say we are sentient beings working to become awakening beings, bodhisattvas. This is the same as the Lord Buddha did. When the mind is obscured by desire, aversion and delusion, that is a sentient being. But whenever we have the brahmavihara, the ‘divine abidings’ of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity established in our hearts, then we can be called excellent beings, or we could be called bodhisattvas. Even beings without such qualities can develop them and eventually become enlightened.<

In the past, the one who was about to become lord Buddha was also merely a human being. But he developed himself to be an extraordinary being, one who was suffused with the brahmaviharas, and thus he was called the Bodhisattva. Then through his persistent contemplation to know the truth, to know the facts of impermanence, suffering, and the lack of a self, he attained to full knowledge and was awakened as the Buddha. So don’t get the idea that there was only one Buddha. The one Buddha is actually the [personification of] saccadhamma, the truth, and whoever is awakened to that is Buddha.

There may be hundred or thousands of buddhas, but they will all follow in this same track, that of correct view. Yes, there is one Buddha, meaning right view. Whoever awakens to that is not different from the Buddha. So the Buddha and sentient beings are not far apart. This is something to be realised within. Realising the truth of original mind, we will see that it is impossible to describe or give it to another. There is no way to show it, noting to compare it to. It is beyond speech or concept. Teaching others, we reply on externals to transmit ideas, but realization of the truth must be accomplished by each individual

Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away: Teachings on Impermanence and the End of Sufferingby Ajahn Chah
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